Fighting the Last Battle

No deal for NoKo and the Dems and The Bulwark are stuck in 2016, fighting the last battle. Is conservativism conserved by mocking pro-lifers at CPAC? The intro/outro and Jon’s song of the week is “Cotton Skies” by Westkust and Stephen’s song of the week is “Maybe You’re the Reason” by The Japanese House. To listen to all the music featured on The Conservatarians, subscribe to our all-new 2019 Spotify playlist!

“The Sean Hannitys to me are not that offensive because Sean Hannity is dumb as a box of rocks — he doesn’t know any better.” — Charlie Sykes, February 22, 2019, theatlantic.com

(Through a spokesperson, Hannity responded, “If Charlie and the rest of the sore-loser, establishment Never Trumpers had their way, Hillary would be president … I wish them well supporting the next radical socialist that runs for president.”)

Wow!

Calling a fellow important conservative with a huge audience and decades of experience “dumb as a box of rocks” sort of proves that you might be as “dumb as a box of rocks”…

Whatever happened to the Golden Rule, Reagan’s 11th Commandment, etc.

Calling balls and strikes on the Trump administration? Sounds more like head-hunting beanball to me.

“Generic white #NeverTrump conservative” is already the most overrepresented type in American media. There are approximately 200 of these people in the United States, and every single one of them has a column in a major newspaper and a book about why Drumpf is the logical and polar opposite of certain ideals supposedly embodied in whatever Tocqueville quotes their research assistants have just pulled up for them. They are the same people who have spent the last two decades insisting that all the things that actually keep people voting for the GOP against their own economics interests — opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage — are yucky. They are often referred to as “neocons,” but this appellation is insulting to the legacy of Irving Kristol and Christopher Lasch. A better one is “metro-conservatives,” i.e., think-tank grifters.

#NeverTrump types are desperate to convince readers that clichés about “entrepreneurship,” endless war, and moaning about the Founding Fathers are still cool. But nobody listens. They had their shot with roughly 15 other candidates in 2016, and the American people rejected all of them, one by one. If your ideas are so bad that social conservatives would rather vote for a twice-divorced serial philanderer than pull the lever for any of the indistinguishable blue-blazered frat boys who are mouthpieces for them, maybe you should rethink what you’re doing. If the Never Trumpers had gotten the candidate they wanted, Hillary Clinton would have won Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

They know this. They also couldn’t care less. Why should they, when the paychecks continue to cash? They have been insulated from the badness of their ideas for decades; this isn’t going to change, probably ever.

. . .

The rise of NeverTrump publications that will be read by nobody reinforces the long-standing view that conservative media is a form of welfare. Here are people who are not clever enough to be academics, not disciplined enough to practice law or any other useful profession, with no particular skills except writing things that no one agrees with who have still ended up rich.

That they’re out looking for wealthy patrons — like The Bulwark‘s lefty billionaires who pay them to attack the President and other conservative voices — instead of depending on readers to actually fund, them tells me they’ll just be dancing to the tune of those who write the checks.

Outside the Beltway and Twitter, few people care what these guys have to say.

I am looking forward to Jonah’s new project. I am not a Trump fan, but find The Bulwark and Kristol obnoxious. Trump is the president. I don’t like him personally, but largely what he has done has been in agreement with what I wanted see. I am concerned that his personality and the anti-Trump right could damage his chances at a second term unless the idiot left gets their wish and nominates one of those leftist ideologues. Either way, conservatives should be supporting whoever is nominated by the party because, ultimately, it is binary. The country is horribly divided and, as such, we need to pick our side and hold to it.

The Bulwark is a disaster. “Conservatism Conserved” is a childish tagline and hints they are doing the opposite. I think the name “Bulwark” might also be a pun for “Bull-werk” as in a factory for bull-sh*t.

If Jonah can make something like WaPo, but from that right, that would be interesting. There is a market for that, but it would take a lot of money.

Maybe it was a bad decision for them to send Molly Jong-Fast to CPAC. That’s all it was; a bad decision. Her piece(s) are not Bulwark editorial positions. And most of the criticism of her is about the things she tweeted, which are not the same as her piece on the website. So the Bulwark itself is a few degrees removed from her tweets, and doesn’t deserve as much blame as it’s getting. They’re probably guilty of some tactical or editorial errors, but not every piece they run is going to be golden. Not every assignment is going to go over well. It seems like everyone is overreacting. This wouldn’t make sense to someone not on the internet.

… #NeverTrump types are desperate to convince readers that clichés about “entrepreneurship,” endless war, and moaning about the Founding Fathers are still cool.

I like moaning about the Founding Fathers, if you mean respecting them. I thought all conservatives did.

The author of the piece is probably not what we would call a conservative — he jocularly refers to the WashingtonPost as a “center-right publication“ — but his critique of this tiny band of, as we used to say during the Cold War, “u——l i——s“, is mostly on the money.

Not that I think it’s really about money: ego is a much more powerful motivator, in political life. (Also, don’t expect to see many articles like this in the print version of TheWeek, which gives Never Trumpers more space than they deserve.)

As for the Founding Fathers, one could argue that, in a dominant culture which is swiftly converting them all into villains, of varying degrees of villainy, it is a futile exercise to discuss what they really thought about this or that policy. If you could get an honest answer from a progressive, he would say “we don’t care what they thought“.

Kristol brags that he’s “triggered snowflakes” by sending a pro-abortion writer to CPAC to mock pro-lifers and conservatives in general.

So . . . that’s the Bulwark. Mocking pro-lifers to own Trump.

Bill Kristol congratulating himself via tweeting seems a lot like the actions of the guy he purports to hate.

Does Bill pay a dude to untie him from all his self-inflicted pretzeling of himself? He’s folded in on himself so many times he must be nearing…The Singularity. The Singularity of Foppish Condescension.

This is what comes from being picked last in every possible sporting event in childhood.

Maybe it was a bad decision for them to send Molly Jong-Fast to CPAC. That’s all it was; a bad decision. Her piece(s) are not Bulwark editorial positions. And most of the criticism of her is about the things she tweeted, which are not the same as her piece on the website. So the Bulwark itself is a few degrees removed from her tweets, and doesn’t deserve as much blame as it’s getting. They’re probably guilty of some tactical or editorial errors, but not every piece they run is going to be golden. Not every assignment is going to go over well. It seems like everyone is overreacting. This wouldn’t make sense to someone not on the internet.

Those are Bulwark tweets if she’s paid to go there, for the Bulwark, and tweet. Which she is. So if there’s no editorial control of that content, it’s still a Bulwark tweet. If they approved it, same thing.

The Kim & Trump & Warmbier controversy reminds me of the News of the World phone hacking scandal.

I pointed out at the time that, to Rupert Murdoch, the publication was hardly more than a line item. “The revenues are down. Do something about it.” “Yessir.“

Eventually it would trickle down to the editor: “Jones, you haven’t brought in a scoop in 18 months. Do something about it.“ “Yessir.“

In the same vein, I think it’s likely Kim was briefed about the existence of an American prisoner named Otto Warmbier. It’s conceivable he took an interest in the case; but, as we well know from experience , in a Communist society you always tell your superiors what they want to hear, not what is actually going on.

Thus, the idea Kim was responsible for Warmbier’s mistreatment is not preposterous, but it is unlikely. And as a CEO himself, Trump understands this.

Incidentally, Kim was born into an evil system; he didn’t create it. We don’t blame Washington and Jefferson for creating the slave system.

Finally, I’m amazed more conservatives don’t point out that, if Russia stole the 2016 election, then Barack Obama is a strong contender for Worst President in American History.

Kristol brags that he’s “triggered snowflakes” by sending a pro-abortion writer to CPAC to mock pro-lifers and conservatives in general.

So . . . that’s the Bulwark. Mocking pro-lifers to own Trump.

Bill Kristol congratulating himself via tweeting seems a lot like the actions of the guy he purports to hate.

Does Bill pay a dude to untie him from all his self-inflicted pretzeling of himself? He’s folded in on himself so many times he must be nearing…The Singularity. The Singularity of Foppish Condescension.

This is what comes from being picked last in every possible sporting event in childhood.

Don’t judge Bill Krystol until you’ve walked a mile in his Gucci brogues.

I love that Stephen Miller, who has never served in the military despite being a military-aged male throughout almost the entirety of the War on Terror, makes a jab at Trump for not serving in Vietnam. An evergreen bonespurs joke–good job, buddy. Also enjoyed his assessment regarding war on the Korean Peninsula. While I only have 175 Twitter followers, which evidently makes me an individual worthy of Miller’s contempt, I also have a security clearance and receive updates/briefs on the particulars of such a war. I also know that early in the Trump Administration, McMaster, et al were planning for a “bloody-nose” strike on Kim because the defense establishment’s assessment of North Korean capability and intent was so dire that many of them believed getting the jump on the Norks in a war might be the best solution; I also happen to know how horrifically bloody any conflict on the Peninsula will be, how quickly we run out of missiles, how long our citizens will be waiting at ports of entry for air and sea lift to evacuate the Peninsula, etc, etc. I know all these things and I disagree with Stephen Miller, but I only have 175 Twitter followers and he has 117K, so we know who the real expert is here.

[A recurring moral-of-the-story in these times: Conservative, Inc. jackassery is how you get Trump.]

I usually stay out of the soap that is the tiresome, supercilious remnants of NT, but my impression of those representing Bulwark on a panel or two at CPAC was they were meek and disdainful of the proletariat class of conservatives they found themselves amongst. When they spoke in their soft NPR tones it was a steady stream of superlative based sanctimony toward most of the audience.

One female who represented the upstart, (I don’t care to name but easy to look up) spoke in such a soft volume you barely realized she was insulting you until her library-level decibels were drowned out by the strong female on their panel ready to take the fight to the left and any contemptuous “conservatives” who refuse to accept the free market spoke: They are neither relevant nor wanted.

If these are the people Bill and Co. want to be the face of Conservativism, we would stand no chance of reversing the Marxist march through the institutions.